Part of my distaste is because I miss the dedicated search button on newer phones (and long press for voice search), but in any case I just don't see the point of Google Now.
1) It's awful at answering questions. I've asked questions in plain english maybe a couple dozen times and almost every time the result has been a simple web search. Not a "card" with an answer on it, which, as far as I can gather, is the point. The only times I've gotten the card were for questions I was only asking to see what it CAN do, since it CAN'T do anything that seems to be useful.
2) The simple answers it can provide are much easier to find in a dedicated app. If I want to know the weather, I look at a widget or open a weather app. If I want to know what's on my agenda, I look at a widget or open the calendar app. I'm not going to open Google Now and see if it happens to have a card for the specific information I want. And the general things it does are all important enough that I have widgets for them that I can see at a glance without opening Google Now.
The only thing it's been able to "do" other than this is simple definitions of words, which I suppose is a little easier than doing a web search, but kind of "meh."
The swiping up from home button thing doesn't seem like it should be THE way to see what Google Now wants to tell you. The passive nature means none of it is immediately pertinent information, yet you have to take action to see it. A widget would make a LOT more sense. As it is, I don't ever find myself thinking "I wonder if there's any random, currently unimportant information I'd like to see." And I'm very rarely in a situation where I don't feel completely ridiculous talking to my phone.
Who uses this thing? Why?
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Since this is an Android related question it belongs in the General forum, not Off-topic.
Thread moved.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk 2
Voice search is a good marketing thingy. It doesnt help me to search things in google the way i do, for example some problems during application developent.
You may not be using it right. Though, keep in mind that it's targeted towards busy people as a means of efficient and accessible information. I believe that the main purpose of google now is to integrate into your agenda to give you relevant information
(ie. checking your destination, route, and traffic, and calculating that you need to leave in xx minutes to arrive at your destination on time)
I don't really see google now as a siri copy, as it doesn't give mediocre and/or witty answers.
You'll probably still use google search a lot. Google now is meant more as a location-based assistant than a siri clone.
It does cards for things like locations, famous people, weather, alarms, definitions, emails, etc.
Yeah, I'm not sure I like siri or Google now. Its a cool concept but sometimes I feel like I have to yell at the phone so it understands me ha
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
IMHO Google Now (and Siri) would be much more useful if voice recognition was improved and answer process snappier.
Indeed, it could be much faster to talk to your phone than navigating through your apps. Besides, Google Now is way smarter than Siri as it tries to guess what information you need before you ask for it. Analysing external information and making it useful should be fully exploited.
Voice assistant is a road on which I think we should make further progress. Google is doing a great job as we can see with the off-line voice recognition.
However I agree with you that Google Now can be useless if the user only uses it to get information you can get by looking at your widgets.. Maybe if it has a deeper integration on the phone, it would be better.
Even if they worked perfectly o would not use them they are a novalty lol fun to show off but just not useful in the real world.
Sent from my SGH-T999 using xda app-developers app
We have to face evolution of search engines, if we like it or not. Searching in web can't stay the way it is forever. We are about to implement AI to search engines, so that computer understands what we are looking for and crawls through web, while we would be working. Potentially new users wouldn't need to "learn" to google in order to find information efficiently.
qoncept said:
Part of my distaste is because I miss the dedicated search button on newer phones (and long press for voice search), but in any case I just don't see the point of Google Now.
Who uses this thing? Why?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be perfectly honest I fail to grasp the whole talk-control allure. I mean seriously, typing is less tiresome, cleaner, quieter and frankly, more private. The one time I actually tested voice control, I felt like a douche. -and- I was alone in my room. Imagine doing it on the middle of the street.
Dedicated widgets, as you said, are the best way to go for effectiveness. Which gets me wondering, how worried should we be that Google sees voice control as "the future"?
Which gets me wondering, how worried should we be that Google sees voice control as "the future"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google isn't like Microsoft, who gives consumers reactionary, low-par software and features. If voice control turns out to not be "the future", then Google will realize it and move away from it.
Seriously, when was the last time that you looked at a Google product and thought to yourself, "man this sucks"? At least, that never happened to me. I'm actually looking into modifying my China N12 tablet to have Google Now in ICS.
Zetthy said:
To be perfectly honest I fail to grasp the whole talk-control allure. I mean seriously, typing is less tiresome, cleaner, quieter and frankly, more private. The one time I actually tested voice control, I felt like a douche. -and- I was alone in my room. Imagine doing it on the middle of the street.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like I said, most of the time I feel like an idiot talking to the phone. The only time I regularly use it is "navigate to ..." when I'm in the car. One button press (and I know exactly where that button is) and I have directions to where I'm going. Until ICS.
SacTappingUni said:
Google isn't like Microsoft, who gives consumers reactionary, low-par software and features. If voice control turns out to not be "the future", then Google will realize it and move away from it.
Seriously, when was the last time that you looked at a Google product and thought to yourself, "man this sucks"? At least, that never happened to me. I'm actually looking into modifying my China N12 tablet to have Google Now in ICS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, Google has definitely shown they are totally willing to dump something if it turns out not to be the next thing. Google Wave anyone? I bet Larry Page is a pretty decent poker player. One of the biggest problems people have is not folding because they have so much invested, even when they can't win.
Related
I've been using google analytics for a little while now and grown to like the way information is laid out for the desktop browser version. Then I looked on the market and found some apps that give you basic information from your account.
But they left me a bit wanting. I was hoping for something more informative, easy and fast to read and remember.
Now as I'm programming illiterate I can only speak for usability and general feel of the app, while appreciating and giving credit to the people putting their time, talent and effort into writing them. The following is not a criticism, it is a proposal for improvement.
So I tried to make something better. Thought about why the desktop version works so well for me and sought out ways to include as much of it onto a small screen. So I drafted my idea of an interface and interaction plus an explanation on how I see it working.
I've done this with a 480 width so that anyone with a 480x800 screen can see how it would look with a bit of zooming 1:1
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As you can see, I've done things a bit differently. Starting with choosing the account and profile, everything is on one page. No more 2-3-4 taps before you get what info you need. This should work by setting one account and one profile as default in the settings. Also integrated graphical representations with a bit of interaction to help with bringing a lot of info onto a small screen.
Also chose the areas that I think would be of most interest. This might not be true for everyone so i'm open for suggestions.
Now, I have some questions.
1. Is this technically feasible?
For one, the apps on the market I've tried so far take a few seconds to return 20-30 lines of text. (my device is a htc desire) How much time wold it take to download and process all this behemoth of data? If too much, could the interface be loaded sequentially by section?
2. What are the hardware platforms that this app could work on with decent performance?
Hero class? Snapdragon?
So I'm looking for someone that is interested in either:
- coding the app from the ground up
- or improving (at least i'm hoping this is an improvement ) his/her existing app with all this
I'm also looking for some feedback of existing analytics apps users.
I would help in any way my programmingly crippled self could. I can also do all the things I've done with Timester: concept, graphics, promotion.
Here is the thread for Timester: Timester development thread
Could someone with experience tell if this is possible?
Thank you
Hello zamolxees,
thanks for the idea. Of course this would be possible to realise. While implementing my app GAnalyticz I had several problems and questions you also have:
How to display the big list of data on the small screen?
How to make the app as fast as possible?
What is the best user experience?
...
I decided to make only a text based view (table). I this case you can show the data on every device with any resolution and you have all information you need. I know it's not so fancy, but it is/was ok for a first version (I think ).
Second important part was the app performance. Google hasn't a library ready and there aren't any good libraries available, so I had to call the Google API on my own. You can get the data in xml via http request. Just combine the metrics & dimensions available in querystring.
So getting the data is very easy. The easiest way to get all the needed data is to make one http request. But then you have to sort and filter the xml which needs a lot of performance. This made my app unuseable. Because of this I decided to make multiple requests. In this case I can just parse the xml and output the data while iterating through it. This is much faster (the fastest way I found, I've tried a lot...). But as you say it is also slow this way...This is because the response from the Google service is really really slow...
So far about my app. Technical it is easy to implement (I think the graphical stuff is the hardest part, but there are libraries for this). The challenge is to find the perfect way to show the data on the device (and to get a good performance for this). You could also load the data sequentially (as I also did).
In my opinion, the hardware is not a problem. This should run on every device.
Actually I don't have enough time to implement this or improve my app (because of another app ). But I hope you will find another developer and looking forward to download this app
Many greets,
aquasonic
Hey, thank you for your detailed input.
I think that one way to help with slow response time from google servers might be to make the requests for data in the background at set intervals (6 or 12 hours) and when the app is opened do the processing of data already received.
The user could clearly see the hour of the last sync and also choose to refresh if they wanted to.
Isn't there a more elegant solution to getting analytics data from google?
Thanks again aqua-sonic, good luck on the other app, let us know how it turns out
Anyone else wanting to take a stab at it?
I'm thinking that as there are a lot of people using analytics apps now, all the more would want to use this.
Any existing users would care to express their opinion?
Would this interface mean an improvement that is worth investing time and effort into?
Would you like to see this done?
Know any good good developers willing to write the code?
Enough questions.
Good news?
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-pays-12-5-billion-for-mororola-mobility-20110815/
hellmonger said:
Good news?
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-pays-12-5-billion-for-mororola-mobility-20110815/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it will be good for new motorola's devices but I think they wouldn't do anythink for our phone because of make an update cost money and they can't win by doing this because this phone is no more for sale.
I can't decide if this matters. On the one hand, we're now two corporate restructurings removed from a company that gave a **** about the XT720 (Motorola [small **** given] > Motorola Mobility [no ****s given] > Google [patent warfare]). On the other hand Google has legendary awful customer support. It seems like a heads Sanjay wins, tails I lose situation.
i'll say it's extremely good news
this should help improve Motorola's phone to have unlocked bootloader and stock AOS, without all the bloatware they always put on it
I don't suppose we'll receive an update for an unlocked bootloader, no? Probably not because it seems Motorola will continue to operate separately from Google
tharan.a said:
I don't suppose we'll receive an update for an unlocked bootloader, no? Probably not because it seems Motorola will continue to operate separately from Google
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never seen any indication that Google disapproves of the bootloader lock. They do disapprove of the lack of updates, but I'm sure we missed the boat on that.
Mioze7Ae said:
I've never seen any indication that Google disapproves of the bootloader lock. They do disapprove of the lack of updates, but I'm sure we missed the boat on that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, couldn't have said it better myself. Most phones have support that barely lasts 2 years. I think this is the end of the XT720. On the brighter side, this will help google fight of apple and microsoft which were just trying to dominate the market with the patents. I see this as a good move for android/opensource as a whole!
With the capability to manufacture its own hardware, Google will be better equipped to take on the iPhone. That should be good.
Google World Domination Coming soon to a world near you.
Will be taken over within:
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3 years 124 days
Google needs Motorola to take over your living room
Google Evil Agenda
My original prediction:
Posted by Urgo at December 16, 2004 11:31 PM
"Don't Be Evil?" video - beta version
Google Xistence
For the past year now I've been predicting that within the next ten Google will 'take over the world'. Most people I tell this two think I'm crazy and this will never happen saying that Google is the best company ever and they will never turn evil. I tend to disagree.
Let me take just a few minutes to explain why I think this, and then at the bottom of this entry is a link to a flash video I found today with someone else thinking the same thing.
Facts - Google owns:
- Google is the most used search engine
- Gmail, while maybe not the most used email provider (maybe it is now?) it is definitely the most highly desired
- Orkut, while mostly blown over now is still a thriving social network site
- Google News is viewed as a #1 news site for many people
- Blogger is one of the leading blog sites and blogs are all over the news these days
- Keyhole offers a satalite imageing service
- Google Desktop Search
- Google Adsense - probably the most widly used advertising on the web these days (used even on this website although I haven't seen any return yet)
- And much much more, plus all the things normal people like myself have come up with such as the random google image in the right sidebar.
My point to all of this is the following:
Through GMail Google stores and never deletes your email. They catalog it and can do a LOT with that data. With time google can write robots to parse the data to find out every bit of data about you, who you know, what you talk about, etc. Gmail bundled with Orkut Google really has a solid grip on your social network with more detail and structure than email alone. Google knows who [email protected] really is, where he lives, what his passtimes are, etc and can link it up with your email conversations. Now to get even further into your life they have the Google Desktop Search which has already been called on being invasive bypassing security on people's PC's and cataloging files that it shouldn't.
Step back for a second, Google now knows who you know, what you talk about, details about every person, everything you say on your computer, what files you have, what is in each file, basically all of your Digital Data. Oh, also if you use the google search bar (IE plug-in) in advanced mode (default.. plus ohh! I want advanced features....) they track every webpage you go, although the desktop search tool does that as well. 0wned.
Next we start to see Google's current revenue. Blogs, Keyhole, Adsense. Wow, if the inflated stock doesn't make them enough $$$ then this sure helps. Although I don't believe Google charges for blogger right now they are setting themselves up for it in the future if blogging ever takes off as a legitimate news source... News.. Google news is one of the most used news services to gather news from many sources, sorted automatically for relevance...
Now, just think if Google DID want to turn evil (assuming they aren't already) how much of the market they already own. In the 90's people switched search engines all the time, but moving email providers, etc is a lot harder to do. In a few more years they'll have people so dependant on them and their products just like Microsoft people will be stuck with Google for better or.. worse.
More info on Google being evil is at google-watch.
Wow, well this was supposed to be a very short blog entry promoting a clip I saw today but I had to get my rant over with. Other then the Google-watch site that’s been around for a while, today on mefi I stumbled into a 10? min flash movie someone made giving a detailed rundown of a possible scenario that Google might take in the coming years towards world domination. I personally haven't come up with a scenario myself, and I am uncertain if this one is how its going to happen, but I was happy to see that others feel the same way as I do, that within the next ten years Google will takeover the world, or in this movie, the media forcing the New York Times offline.
Please take the time to watch this movie, and ignore the somewhat cheesiness of it. I really think they are being insightful and this COULD happen.
Flash Movie Of How Google Will Take Over The World
Google Plans To Kill Web In Internet Takeover Agenda
Google's Motorola Takeover Bid To Draw Antitrust Scrutiny, Analysts Say
I forgot that Motorola Mobility makes cable-top boxes. That's a plus for GoogleTV which I think is also Android based? Or is that Chrome based? I forget.
Today's android news keeps getting more and more interesting. First google and moto and now Cyanogen and Samsung.
"Steve Kondik, better known as Cyanogen, the father of CyanogenMod, has posted an interesting update to his professional life on his Facebook page. Steve, who has founded the largest family of custom Android ROMs on the planet, has just joined Samsung Mobile to presumably work on Android-related goodies for one of world's largest electronics manufacturers." -Android Police
(Can't post links yet, check Android Police)
Two developments which hopefully do nothing but improve the quality of the Android OS.
Good..Now Google control both software and hardware can make better opened source devices...stupid moto is dying , may google takes over and unlock all the moto build mobile deveice bootloaders
I was thrilled when reading about it. One of the main problems is that Moto seems to fail to optimize their hardware with the software. Meaning that, despite having powerful specs in several of their phones, it stills ends up being laggy and buggy. How is it that the Nexus S with its single core can outlag the Atrix? or even the Nexus One? resolution, graphics and processor needs to be better developed for usage.
Other than the bloatware, I find the Motorola developers really fail to take advantage of the specs and integrating it with Android.
Hopefully, the Moto and Google developers can get together and finally fix this problem. Specs mean nothing if the phone can't use it efficiently.
I'm pretty sure everyone will celebrate if Moto announces that they are switching to google stock, and turning motoblur into only widget apps, instead of a launcher apk. It still boggles my mind how companies can continue to push such applications, and this applies to Sony Ericcsons terrible Timescape app. it was already a trainwreck on the X10.
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This is something I had an idea about as soon as I saw the Nexus Q. I saw the potential this device has, however the current setup is just lacking. Good thing is hackable and runs Android though.
I am not a developer, I just come up with concepts in the hope that either Google or a developer will like the idea and begin to implement it.
What is it?
The Q-Dash is a customisable dashboard powered by the Nexus Q. Every morning, we wake up and check our phones for the latest news, weather, Facebook updates etc. If you can get it on your phone, its likely that we will check it.
However, you have a Nexus Q, why not put all that information onto one screen.
When your alarm goes off, your Android Device sends a command to the Nexus Q to power up the Q-Dash.
Q-Dash is your daily dashboard of all the information you check in the morning and its fully customisable. It can give you any Google Now Card, the latest breaking news stories, RSS feeds, Facebook/Twitter information, Live TV or Audio Streams. Q-Dash also shows you notifications you might have missed during the night.
How does it work?
Q-Dash is a completely 'hands free' experience from the moment your alarm goes off. When the alarm is activated, your Android device automatically listens for your voice, enabling you to snooze or dismiss your alarm without getting out of bed. Once it receives the dismiss command, your Android Device powers the Nexus Q on in Q-Dash mode.
From then on, your Android Device listens out for a hotword. When it hears this hotword, it activates the speech recognition so you can control Q-Dash.
Ask it to show you your RSS feeds from the Google Blog, and thats what it will do. Ask it to read you an article from a RSS feed - it'll do that as well.
Change the Livestream, post a Facebook/Twitter update, see the weather forecast, check your daily agenda or go to your favourite website - Q-Dash can do all this an more. It also has the compatibility to launch Q-Dash optimised applications from your device, right onto the Q-Dash. So if you want to see your favourite news application on Q-Dash, just ask it to launch. If the app is Q-Dash optimised, it'll launch for you.
If you have multiple Nexus Q's in your house, you can take Q-Dash with you. Simply tap your phone on any Q-Dash to bring it up. Q-Dash also knows when you have left your house, so can power down the Nexus Q automatically.
If you like this concept, don't forget to click Newsworthy in the top right and share this around the web!
[CONCEPT] Nexus Q: Q-Dash
I legitimately had to register to give you props on your idea. That is an amazing concept. I'm not sure how much voice sounds and my video editing is none existent, but to support your idea I would be up for chatting on skype or the something else to see if you could use me.
slevin50 said:
I legitimately had to register to give you props on your idea. That is an amazing concept. I'm not sure how much voice sounds and my video editing is none existent, but to support your idea I would be up for chatting on skype or the something else to see if you could use me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
Video editing isn't needed. Just record yourself saying a few sentences from above and send it
Updated the video with Q-Dash voice
This is an absolutely amazing idea. I don't really have much to add, just wanted to say good work and I'm looking forward to seeing someone do this.
Mortalys77 said:
This is an absolutely amazing idea. I don't really have much to add, just wanted to say good work and I'm looking forward to seeing someone do this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
If you'd like to help, sharing on Twitter, Google+, Facebook etc would be appreciated
Oh man.
I may just have to end up getting a Q if it gets crazy projects like this
This also comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
Edit and shameless plug: I wrote about this on my blog. http://androidallies.com/2012/06/30/what-to-do-with-nexus-q/
I keep thinking about how awesome this could be.
Totaly useless, but looks good)
AmoJ said:
Totaly useless, but looks good)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why totally useless? Bet you wake up and use your phone in bed, or put the news on or read it?
Nobody have anymore feedback?
Final version has been submitted, complete with voiceover etc
Dude, all I have to say is the concept sounds pretty awesome. However, and this isn't the fault of Q-Dash at all...unless if the Q gets a lot more functionality, and quickly, I doubt too many people are going to be paying $300 for a gimped device. I mean, it's a networked media consumption device, but it can't even do local streaming of audio or video (at least not natively, and I haven't seen anything 3rd party that can do it either).
Three times expensive than Apple TV,I'm not sure it's worth enough
Yeah I best you.
Its been hacked to runs apps hasn't it so things like this shouldn't be to far away
This is an amazing concept for the Q! I can't wait to see where this goes! This is the future!! I just picked my Q up on ebay today. For those of you interested but not wanting to pay 300+ tax check out ebay. I got mine for 195 and saw them come and go for 170-210 from the Google I/O folks. Following this thread and can't wait to see where this goes! This just made me 1000 times more excited about picking up the Q.
branshaw09 said:
This is an amazing concept for the Q! I can't wait to see where this goes! This is the future!! I just picked my Q up on ebay today. For those of you interested but not wanting to pay 300+ tax check out ebay. I got mine for 195 and saw them come and go for 170-210 from the Google I/O folks. Following this thread and can't wait to see where this goes! This just made me 1000 times more excited about picking up the Q.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
It doesn't seem to be gauging much interest like my notification concept.
Feel free to share it round, submit it as a news tip to sites etc
Evostance said:
Thanks
It doesn't seem to be gauging much interest like my notification concept.
Feel free to share it round, submit it as a news tip to sites etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you looking for from the community? Backers? Interest? Do you have plans to launch? What do you need to launch or begin development?
Sorry for all of the questions but I'd really like to know where your vision is for this new concept, as this is something that has really got my interest.
Thanks
branshaw09 said:
What are you looking for from the community? Backers? Interest? Do you have plans to launch? What do you need to launch or begin development?
Sorry for all of the questions but I'd really like to know where your vision is for this new concept, as this is something that has really got my interest.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My vision would be for either a developer or Google to jump on board and develop it as its only a concept. If I had the time in my life, I'd sit down and attempt to learn Java and see what I could do myself, however I have pretty much no free time at the moment
Congrats!
Mas, it´s great.
I shared it on my Google Plus.
Thanx for this concept.
As the post title states I'm running CM10 Nightly 11/3/12. Here is my dilemma, I never store my contacts on my Google accounts nor anything else for that matter. Any way, I backup my contacts to my external SD card. When I go to restore them to the phone I am faced with an option of what account I would like to set them to. In the past or should I say when on ICS I get the options of email accounts and the phone. Now on JB I am forced to choose only one of my email accounts. There is no option to chose to restore to phone without linking to an email account. This can not and will not do. I am hoping that this is just a glitch with the nightly build or something of that nature. If this is something that is an implementation from Google and is going to be forced down our throats I think that I just may be one very in happy camper an will have to stay in the past. If I this a nightly thing. Then whatever, there are other choices till it gets fixed. Any way, would appreciate a concrete definitive yes or no answer to this question. Or how to fix the problem. But please no speculations if you are in sure as to what the answer is.
And just so this does not get advised to me. I will not be backing my contacts up to any cloud based system at all. Just so that you understand what I am saying when I say contacts. I am referring to phone numbers. Not emails.
Any way...
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
because "they" are digging thru our google accounts just to get our friends and family's phone #'s...
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Brian Gove said:
because "they" are digging thru our google accounts just to get our friends and family's phone #'s...
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Well my friend. I am not worried about "they". OK? The fact of the matter is I have private and sensitive info that only certain yes are aloud to see. If if you are not aware the cloud systems that are up and running all over the place don't work that well. You cannot tell me with absolute certainty that Google or any other entity that is connected to the net is perfectly safe from prying eyes. It will never truly be safe and fully protected. You can try and poke fun at me because I don't subscribe to yours and other people's ideas. I could give a rats ass about what you think. You must be a naive hipster type to think your wonderful internet is the safest playground in the world. Get the heck out of here and go make a fool of your self elsewhere. I am looking for useful comments that will be useful to me or others.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Jaytronics said:
Well my friend. I am not worried about "they". OK? The fact of the matter is I have private and sensitive info that only certain yes are aloud to see. If if you are not aware the cloud systems that are up and running all over the place don't work that well. You cannot tell me with absolute certainty that Google or any other entity that is connected to the net is perfectly safe from prying eyes. It will never truly be safe and fully protected. You can try and poke fun at me because I don't subscribe to yours and other people's ideas. I could give a rats ass about what you think. You must be a naive hipster type to think your wonderful internet is the safest playground in the world. Get the heck out of here and go make a fool of your self elsewhere. I am looking for useful comments that will be useful to me or others.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
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Obviously you do give a rats ass otherwise your response wouldn't be so heated lol. I know the internet isn't safe, but nobody gives a **** about your phone numbers and addresses. Or mine or anyone else's. Unless you're storing credit card numbers or sensitive things like that in your contacts nobody could give a rats ass about them...
And to answer your 'dilemma', link them but don't sync them. In your accounts turn off contacts. It's that simple.
Brian Gove said:
Obviously you do give a rats ass otherwise your response wouldn't be so heated lol. I know the internet isn't safe, but nobody gives a **** about your phone numbers and addresses. Or mine or anyone else's. Unless you're storing credit card numbers or sensitive things like that in your contacts nobody could give a rats ass about them...
And to answer your 'dilemma', link them but don't sync them. In your accounts turn off contacts. It's that simple.
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Thank you for the advice. And I am well aware that you and others could care less about my contacts and other sensitive data. But I am the one who started this post. So, it is I who cares. I asked to get an answer. Though the advice you gave is good. And would work. It in this case would be to risky.
Now, I did find an app in the market that solves my problems. And seeing as I have found the answer to my own question. I will share the answer. It is called, as one might guess. "Import Contacts"
One other thing, I would like to apologize for getting a wee bit heated earlier. But, when I see smart as posts while my day was not going to good. It as you noticed, brings out my good side. Lol!
I'm not going to tell you not to be a smart ass. Because well, I to am one at times. And I do not like being hypocritical. One thing I have learned is that if some one is asking a question on a forum. There is a chance that they might have put a bit of effort into finding an answer before they posted the question. And they may be getting a bit disgruntled at the problem they are facing. So they just may get a little defensive. Not that that is anything to be scared of. Especially here on the interwebs. I'm not telling you what to do. Just making a suggestion. Reason being, w should make it a point to help and try to make life for others a bit easier if at all possible. I may sound like a hippie but peace and friendship is way better than us being ass heads. Don't get me wrong, I have my share of bing a jerk or an idiot at the times. He k, look at my initial post to your post. But, I did make the effort to apologize. Any way, thank you for your suggestion.
Now from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
Doing what I suggested only links them to that amount for the local phone purposes. Things like in the dialer where you can choose to show only one account, etc. You just gotta make sure you go to that/those accounts and turn sync off for contacts. It won't send them to any cloud.
App Search Plus
Post Summary:
Fast, clean and lightweight
Search for and launch any app you have installed by name
Long press for the application info page - uninstall apps quickly without going through Apps settings page
Installation:
Search "App Search Plus" (with the quotation marks) in the Play Store.
Or go to: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rjt.appsearch or http://bit.ly/appsearchplus
Screenshots:
(see below in Attached Thumbnails)
About:
I've been on XDA since 2008, but I've been more of a consumer than a producer. Rooted my android device, turned it inside out. I have XDA to thank for that. I think it's time to give back.
And so, yes. This is my first post here on XDA, but certainly not my first experience into programming or posting on forums.
At the last count, I had 304 apps installed, and only 7 homescreens. All 7 are full, and not every single app was important enough to earn its place there.
But the apps I do have, I have for a reason. I have so many 'occasional-use' apps lying around that are useful enough for me to keep, but not used often enough for me to pin them to the homescreen.
iOS has a brilliant solution - its Spotlight search let's you find any app you have. But on Android? So many times I couldn't find an app when I really needed it because it was lost in the launcher, in its many pages.
You may or may not need this, simply because your manufacturer could have included a search feature in their customized Android implementation on your device. You may already have the ability to search for your apps.
But one thing I hated - was some features being in some devices, but not in others. Samsung's Multi-Window feature, for instance. You'd have one camp, happy with all the additional features that they have, while others, running equally capable hardware, running an almost equivalent operating system, are denied these useful features. I understood Samsung's need to have a competitive advantage, but that didn't mean I liked it. At the time I really wanted someone to just code an app that gave the functionality to everyone else. Today, there's the Xposed framework. There are multi-window-enabling mods out there that bring that goodness to you and everyone else outside that inner circle. And I think that's great. This is what open Android is.
I know stock Android doesn't have search built in. Some devices like the Sony Xperia series do. Whatever the reason - perhaps you think the inbuilt search is buried behind too many clicks, or isn't intuitive enough - should you want to try out the app, it's available here on the Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rjt.appsearch
If searching for it on-device, you have to put "App Search Plus" in quotation marks. Otherwise, it's #100+ in the search results, even with a search for the exact name. One thing I learnt was that Google provides zero traffic and visibility for new apps.
When I designed this I held fast to the idea that your apps are your eventual destination, and this app's design reflects that. Finding your apps is but the means to an end - and so you'll see that the app doesn't take over your screen, presenting you with options that you'll never take. I aimed to design an app that was seamless; one that didn't interrupt you. I hope you like what you see.
Do post comments and if you have any feature requests, please send them in. Please do note that I'm not looking to overburden this app with features though! It has one function - and it's my hope that it excels in it.
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Typing in the google search box on the homescreen on my Nexus 5 returns app results but thats not very intuitive at all. I like how your app starts with "A" so it will be right there when I inevitably go to the list of apps to tediously search for one.
Yes, Google Search seems to want to show you its web results first and order your apps last, every time.
Amazing work. Been looking for an app like this for a very long time!
Few things to consider:
- when pulling up (google search gesture) there's no icon, would be nice to put a search icon in there
- ability to exclude certain apps from the search
Thanks again!
@Cow07
I had initially left out the icon because Android 4.4 (on my phone) had a default icon that had a working focus state. (it seems that custom icons don't get the hover-over highlight that Google Now gets.)
It appears that on Android 5.0 Google has done away with the default icon and now the icon is simply blank. I'll push out an update for the icon soon! Thanks for the feedback.
As for excluding apps, I think that's a good idea. Will implement that soon.
Love the app! Would appreciate the ability to auto-launch an app if its the only result of the search!
Launch using home button long-press?
Upgraded to Android M on EUI 5.8.917S and lost the ability to launch App Search + by long pressing the home button. My device is Le 1s. Any solutions?
Very useful
It's a very useful app, I have a Xiaomi device and organizing/searching for apps was always a huge pain point as MIUI doesn't have an app drawer. The Google app searches for apps though, but it's slow and puts them in the bottom of the list.
I would love a widget, because the open by "long-press on home, then swipe up" doesn't work on MIUI. Or do you have any tricks to solve the swipe action on MIUI?
Anyway, I put together a few screens in Sketch, so that I can show you how the widget should work in my opinion. See the screens here:
1drv.ms/f/s!AgkN6PRx0XOyk9RFzVf6fPRhoVOusw
Thank you for your work on this. Keep it up!
Best,
Zsolt
P.s.: if you ever need some help in design, just let me know, I'd love to participate in projects like this
I can't find any better place to file a bug report, so I hope you're still watching this thread. Anyway, this app had been working fine on my Pixel for all versions of Nougat. I just updated to Oreo, and the app now crashes whenever the search results would contain an app for a Google service (e.g. Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, Drive, etc.). It's not restricted to built-in apps; I downloaded Google Keep, which is not included with the Pixel, and experienced the same problem when searching for it. All other searches still work fine.
Thank you, and I hope you can find a solution.